


Life is easier where the walls are red (Brooklyn is a place stuck in my head)

by Quanna



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quanna/pseuds/Quanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The kid looks at him, eyes wide in sheer disbelief. She’s clutching a plastic mini version of Steve’s shield, and is looking at him like he’s just told her he’s Cap himself. It’s adorable, and he’s damned if he’s going to stop smiling any time soon. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Bucky goes for a walk in Brooklyn, meets a young superhero fan, and feels a little bit better about himself afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is easier where the walls are red (Brooklyn is a place stuck in my head)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Brooklyn" by Woodkid
> 
> A big thank you to my friends [WeepingCas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WeepingCas/pseuds/WeepingCas) for pestering me to write this, [Judchen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Judchen/pseuds/Judchen) for supporting me until 4am to finish this, and my beloved beta [blauverdose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blauverdose/pseuds/blauverdose) for bètaing this. You're all awesome and I owe you.

If he squints his eyes at the evening sun hitting the dirty brickwork and setting the windows on fire, he can almost remember what it looked like when he last walked here. Almost, because he isn’t that good at remembering on queue yet. Mostly when he remembers it’s random things. Tastes and smells and sounds he thought buried too deep. The sun is hot on his face, and he is sweating beneath his shirt and leather jacket. Neither of which he can take off, unfortunately. It may be the twenty-first century, but he’s fairly certain people still would not react too kindly to a half-naked guy and his, euhm, _enthusiastic_ metal arm.

 He doesn’t come here often, avoids it in fact, even though they tell him it’s good for recovering and remembering things. Gentle triggers, they call it, but he’s pulled enough triggers to know they can never be gentle.

 His dark blue shirt starts to stick to his back as he walks, and he silently curses his own sense of humour for getting the better of him. Obviously that superhero merchandise stuff is printed on the cheapest cotton available. He unzips his jacket fully, takes a few steps, stops when he realises where he is. He’s never been back to this part of town before. Back to the raffish street with its noisy dwellers, clothed in the sickly sweet factory smell of coconut and chocolate. The constant queue of working men and boys left to fend for themselves itches in his mind and he walks forward with uncertain steps. Straight shoulders and broad frame a sharp contrast to his boyish gait.

Of course Steve’s told him – warned - that their old place has undergone an extensive regeneration project along with the whole street, but he doesn’t realise what that means until he reaches their doorstep and stares. Stares at the neatly kept stone steps and the delicate golden railings curling up towards the porch, gleaming in the amber light. He looks up and it’s as much a block of flats as it ever was, the different lives being lived spilling out through half open windows and narrow fire escapes; voices changed in opinions but still the same in accent.

He looks back the way he came and sees the present filling in the gaps of the past in his memory; dirty brickwork factory and muddy feet bleeding into luxury apartments and a broad tarmac road. The colours of a wartime national flag behind a cracked window wash out into the bright stripes of a Pride flag on a wall. He sees men eager to touch, afraid to ask and terrified to feel, darkened alleys and shiftily lit waterfront bars. The fear then different from the worry now.  He wills himself to remember that, forcefully committing it to memory.

He looks ahead and sees the older buildings dwarfed by glass skyscrapers and offices in the distance, alight in the feverish glow of the evening sun. He sucks in a breath and stills. The sheer size of it all is unnerving, overwhelming and not a tiny bit terrifying when he admits it. But the oranges, reds, and purples of the sky smeared across the seemingly endless wall of glass - it’s beautiful. He stands there and looks, drawn in by the colours. His mind is whirring but for once it’s comforting: it’s trying to take in instead of pushing out. After a minute or so the brightness makes even his slightly enhanced eyes water and he shields them, the metal of his arm reflecting orange. It’s an old defence trick he is still learning to pass off as convenience. He grabs the sleeve of his jacket to cover his platinum-coloured wrist.

 

A shrill voice reaches his ears and he snaps his arm back, looking down into the awestruck face of a young kid as he does so.

“He’s my favourite superhero,” the girl almost shrieks, pointing at him. “I didn’t know grownups liked Captain America!” 

 Ah. He glances down at the red, white, and blue shield printed on his shirt. A grin spreads across his face, and then he’s smiling, a full-out, teeth-showing, ear-to-ear smile. “Oh they do,” he answers, and he doesn’t quite manage to keep the implications from his voice. “He’s my favourite superhero too.”

 The kid looks at him, eyes wide in sheer disbelief. She’s clutching a plastic mini version of Steve’s shield, and is looking at him like he’s just told her he’s Cap himself. It’s adorable, and he’s damned if he’s going to stop smiling any time soon.

She fumbles with her shield, her eyes darting to his left side and resting on the suddenly way too visible slice of metal between his sleeve and glove. He hastily folds his arm behind his back and she lowers her gaze to the ground, shuffling her feet. He wonders if she’ll run away. She draws an invisible circle with her left foot, then straightens up, shield at her side. Clearly the Winter Soldier is not that scary anymore. She asks softly, “Do you know him?”

She’s good, this one. He crouches down on the pavement so that his eyes are level with hers and whispers theatrically, “Don’t tell anyone, but I live with him.” He silently adds a few less child-friendly things he occasionally does with Captain America and smirks openly at his private joke.

The girl’s eyes go even wider until she’s gaping at him, mouth slightly open. “No way,” she breathes.

He lets out a brief, honest laugh, and says: “I’ll tell him hi from you, okay?”

She’s nodding enthusiastically. “I’m Nat, for Natalie.”

From the way she says it, he’s sure the shortened form is entirely her own idea, and he’s got a few ideas under whose indirect influence that was. “Hi Nat, I’m B- James. I’m James.” He keeps smiling as she studies him. It’s not painful anymore, but he can’t use the name just yet. The wounds have healed as best they could, but the scar tissue is still a little too raw.

“You’re a nice grownup, I like you,” she declares, giving him a dazzling smile.  It’s _his_ eyes that widen slightly at that. “I’ve got to go help people now,” she says proudly after a moment, and he recognises the determination in her voice.

He nods in complete agreement, salutes her and gets up, straightening his shirt. Not that there’s anything remotely straight about Captain America (or himself, for that matter), he thinks distractedly as he watches Nat run off towards the glass buildings, immensely proud of his own pun.

His whole body feels like he’s just had fifteen large coffees, and he’s aching to break into a run himself. Not the desperately-fleeing-from-death-kind, but the five-years-old-waking-up-on-Christmas-morning-kind. He runs forward, feet suddenly sure on a vaguely familiar pavement. He pauses in his tracks when their street ends, ruthlessly cut off by a highway he does not remember being built.

He doesn’t do nostalgia often, because to be honest he hasn’t got all that much to be nostalgic about. They lost most of what they had amidst it all, buried beneath ice and an iron curtain. Yet as he looks around him, remembering everything that is and isn’t there anymore, there’s a small pang of it somewhere that he doesn’t silence.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m neither American nor am I from the 30s so there’s probably a ton I got wrong anyways (I’m not even a native English speaker ha ha ah) but a bit of research never did anyone harm. 
> 
> For historical accuracy and locations I’ve used [this post](http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/213805.html).
> 
> Further historical notes on the buildings in Middagh Street came from [here](http://forgotten-ny.com/2013/09/middagh-street-brooklyn-heights/). 
> 
> And a bit about the sweets from the factory on the corner came from [ here](http://candyprofessor.com/2010/05/12/masons-peaks/). 
> 
> The descriptions of present day Brooklyn are only as accurate as Google Maps as I’ve never been there. 
> 
> Also Woodkid. Go check him out.
> 
> *update October 2014:* I have actually been to New York now, and without meaning to, ended up in Middagh Street. Quite a surreal experience to suddenly walk in the setting of your own story. It is however, a truly beautiful city, and I hope I did it justice.


End file.
